Brancoli Memory Museum
The Museum has been set up in large, completely renovated premises, with an exhibition that aims to keep alive the local historical memory of the passage of the Second World War.
CONTACTS
ADDRESS: Via San Giusto di Brancoli, 2030 – San Giusto di Brancoli
TELEPHONE: 339 8854979 - 338 1400559
E-MAIL: lineagoticabrancoli@gmail.com
APP & WEB SOLUTION: FB/lineagoticabrancoli
The Museum is divided into thematic areas with a large conference room and an important historical documentary and photographic archive.
Visitors are provided with details about the material, uniforms and other items on display.
Guided tours, by reservation, of the Gothic Line fortifications on Mount Pittone are also available, along a route of great historical and scenic value.
The Brancoli Memory Museum is organized into thematic areas.
The Battlefields Room
It contains excavation material that was found in the Brancoleria area, but also in general in the province of Lucca and surrounding areas.
There is also other material used on the battlefield: various types of mines, from anti-personnel to anti-tank mines, to other types of weapons and ammunition used by the various units present in our areas. A sort of "mini minefield" has been reproduced here to demonstrate and understand the dangers of all these devices.
The Conference Room & Historical Archive
It is named after Piergiorgio Romboli, a well-known local historian. This room houses a large photographic exhibition divided by theme, all relating to our region and thus providing a valuable testimony to its history, as well as a historical archive with many books on the subject.
The German and Italian Army Hall (of the Royal Army).
This is a room particularly rich in material, particularly a variety of uniforms and helmets. There is also a large quantity of material issued to the soldiers and equipment in general. It is here that we have painstakingly recreated a bunker, similar to those found on the nearby Gothic Line. In reproducing this section of a bunker, we were inspired by the stones used on nearby Monte Pittone. Various materials that might have been present were inserted into this bunker section, thus reproducing a scene of life at that time.
The Ivan J. Houston Hall of Allied Forces
Named after the sergeant of the 92nd Buffalo Division who, as a young man, liberated the Serchio Valley with other African-American soldiers of the Buffalo Division. Ivan J. Houston, who returned to these areas after 70 years and discovered how much he was still loved.
The room contains various items belonging to the Allied armies, particularly the American, but also the British and Brazilian, commemorating the soldiers of the FEB. Much of the material on display in the room was donated by Houston's son.
Here too, a evocative angle is offered, the encounter between a civilian and an American soldier in a rural setting, a chicken coop. A "simple" scene, but charged with meaning because it's what happened at the time, with locals offering something to the liberators, and in turn they offered other products, but unseen until then.
The room also provides an opportunity to exhibit peasant culture material.